Louis Maqhubela

About

This special selection relates to Maqhubela's major retrospective exhibition, A Vigil of Departure, at the Standard Bank Gallery in Johannesburg from 4 August — 16 September, and touring to the South African National Gallery in Cape Town and the Durban Art Gallery. Curated by Marilyn Martin (former Director of the National Gallery) the Standard Bank exhibition will be accompanied by the most comprehensive catalogue published to date, with an extensive essay by the curator covering the remarkable historical achievement of Louis Maqhubela as the first ‘black artist' to win a top art prize in an Apartheid-clad South Africa of 1967, and then following his career to the present. The retrospective exhibition presents an overview of Maqhubela's work from the early '60s to 2010, bridging the gap from when the artist left South Africa in 1973 to go into voluntary exile with his family. He has lived and worked in London since 1978, where he has continued to exhibit in landmark exhibitions including Art From South Africa at Oxford's Museum of Modern Art in 1990 and in the National Museum of African Art's Claiming Art/Reclaiming Space at the Smithsonian Institution, Washington DC in 1999.